The alcohol industry self regulates its marketing practices
and pledges to avoid showing ads for beer wine or sprits to TV audiences that contain
more than 30% underage viewers, such as children’s programming. Yet many cable
TV programs widely watched by adult viewers also attract a substantial teen
market share. Researchers funded by the CDC looked to evaluate how well alcohol
industry self regulation was working and to see what effect, if any, teen viewership
had on the types of alcohol ads shown.

Researchers used Nielsen Media Research data to gain
demographic information on the audience that watched every one of 600 000 commercials
for wine, beer, alcopops or liquor shown on cable TV between 2001 and 2006. Cable
TV stations show nearly all alcohol ads presented on television.

They found that:

Television
shows that had a wider teen audience had more alcohol ads that TV shows
with an exclusively adult audience

A one
percentage increase in the numbers of teens watching a show led to a 7%
increase in beer advertisements, a 15% jump in liquor ads and a 22%
increase in spots for alcopops.

The
number of alcohol ads seen by teens per year increased over the 5 year
course of the study

Tellingly,
a 1% increase in teen viewership led to an 8% decline in wine ads

The more teenagers watching a program, the greater the
numbers of alcopops ads, (soda-pop like alcoholic drinks) but more teens led to
fewer wine ads, a drink presumably targeted at an older audience.

Study leader,
Paul Chung, out of UCLA, was quick to point out that their study was never
intended to learn if alcohol advertisers were, “intentionally overexposing
adolescents," but said that “the ultimate effect of their advertising
strategies, intentional or not, appears to be greater exposure than might be
expected if adults were the sole targets of ads."

David Jernigan of The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth,
commented on the study results by condemning industry practices, saying, “This
research suggests that ads are aimed at groups that include a disproportionate
number of teens and that the alcohol industry's voluntary self-monitoring is
not working to reduce adolescent exposure to ads."

Here are 2 facts about alcoholism: It tends to get worse over time (it is progressive) and most people experience a fairly similar progression of symptoms and consequences. Here is a timeline which charts the progressive experiences of alcoholism through the early, middle and late stages. If you have a drinking problem, find out where you fall on the timeline and consider what’s coming in the future. Read Article